Technology and Web 2.0

This week’s Web Faceoff between Skype and Google Voice came down to the wire.

Last week, Google stepped onto Skype’s turf with the launch of <a
href="Google Voice integration in Gmail. Since its launch, Gmail users have made over 10 million calls through the new Google Voice integration.

Is Google Voice a threat to Skype’s longstanding dominance? On Monday we asked you, the readers, to choose which voice service you preferred. After the closest vote in the history of the Web Faceoff…

…Google Voice is the winner by just 20 votes. With 1,438 votes (42.87%), Google’s voice service beat Skype’s 1,418 tallies (42.28%). That’s barely more than a half-percent difference. 498 of you (14.85%) voted that it was a tie.

One of the big issues with Google Voice many commenters pointed out was that it’s only available in the U.S., while Skype is worldwide. Perhaps this is a debate we’ll have to revisit when Google’s offering is in the hands of the rest of the world. Let us know what you think of this week’s poll results in the comments.

More About: gmail, Google, Google Voice, poll, Skype, voip, web faceoff

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It has been revealed that the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is conduction an investigation of Google over complaints of antitrust and anti-competitive behavior, and the search giant is responding.

According to Search Engine Land, the state of Texas’ investigation is focused on whether Google manipulates its search results to the detriment of its competition. The investigation was sparked by complaints from vertical search engines Foundem, SourceTool/TradeComet and myTriggers. While none of these companies operate out of the state of Texas, they only need customers in the state to help spark an investigation.

Google has since responded to the report via a blog post from Deputy General Counsel Don Harrison. In it, Harrison addresses the questions about the “fairness” of the Google search engine while providing background on Foundem, SourceTool/TradeComet and MyTriggers. This background refutes each company’s argument that Google is engaging in anticompetitive behavior.

“We look forward to answering their questions because we’re confident that Google operates in the best interests of our users,” Harrison said in the company’s response.

Google is facing a similar investigation from the European Commission over whether it manipulates search results to stifle competition.

What do you think of the investigation? Do you think Google is engaging in antitrust behavior, or is this smoke and mirrors? Let us know in the comments.

More About: Antitrust, Google, investigation, privacy, texas

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Vidyo, a company that specializes in high-quality video conferencing technology for the enterprise, is betting big on bringing video conferencing to mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. Similar to Skype, Vidyo offers a technology that allows people to connect with each other over the web via video conferencing. However, the company says that Vidyo system is focused more on the enterprise, providing a reliable system, allowing conferencing for many parties at once, and offering high quality video.

And Vidyo has built a big business licensing its technology to large electronics companies, such as HP, Intel and Hitachi. Vidyo’s technology is also used by Google to power video for Google Chat.

Location-based service Echo Echo recently posted the above image to their blog in a (successful) attempt to garner some media attention as the debate around online privacy continues to rage.

As extreme as their“If Mark Zuckerburg Cared About Privacy” example is, it does call attention to the needless complexity of various web service privacy agreements, settings and policies.

In the wake of a $8.5 million lawsuit settlement today, search giant Google made a gesture of good faith in the “caring about privacy” department, assuring users that it was taking steps in order to make the minutae of online privacy easier to understand.

“For example, we’re deleting a sentence that reads, ‘The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies,’ since it seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies.”

Perhaps this concerted movement towards being more transparent and simple with regards to privacy would also work well for Facebook which, like Google, is currently involved in various privacy scuffles.

As a longtime Apple TV owner, I’ll admit a dirty little secret: I really like the device. Sure, it has been one of the rare flops for Apple in recent years. And it could be so much more with say, a Blu-ray player or a web browser. But it is really good at its core functionality: bringing iTunes content into your living room. And that’s why this new version of the Apple TV makes sense — at least for now.

When I first bought the Apple TV, there were two varieties: a 40 gigabyte version and a 160 gigabyte version. I was torn between which one to get, but I ultimately went with the 160 GB one thinking I could put most of my movies on it. Big mistake. I basically never use the hard drive on my Apple TV, so it’s a 160 GB hard drive sitting there doing nothing. Instead, I stream everything to the Apple TV.

In fact, the only time I do use the hard drive on my current Apple TV is when I rent a movie on it. Currently, even when renting, you download a movie to your hard drive where it sits for up to 30 days (or 24 hours after you start playing it). But with the new iTunes rentals (both TV and movies) everything is streamed — no hard drive is required (besides a small one for buffering purposes). Thanks to that, and undoubtedly the knowledge that most owners were using it for streaming, Apple removed the hard drive from the device, and cut it down in size and price.

Now, at one-forth the size and less than half the price, it’s an even more attractive way to get your iTunes content into your living room. And it has a few very nice bonuses. The mixture of the new Netflix functionality with Apple’s new release rental movies makes this an excellent in-home movie machine for the masses. For those who pay $9 a month to Netflix, you get access to tens of thousands of older movies. For those interested in newer movies, they’re $4.99 a pop from Apple.

Yes, Apple removed the option to buy movies on the Apple TV itself. But you can still do this through iTunes on your computer — or on your iPad/iPhone/iPod touch. And guess what? With the forthcoming AirPlay feature, you’ll be able to stream any of those purchased movies right from any of those devices to the Apple TV. In a way, it sort of does make the Apple TV a $99 iPad accessory.

Further, the removal of the option to buy (as well as the removal of the SD options) make Apple TV much less complicated for general consumers. Now there is no question about whether you should rent or buy. There is also no question about whether you should do rent or buy in HD or SD. I suspect most people were renting in HD on the device, which is why Apple made the move it did to eliminate the other unnecessary options. They’re keeping it simple, stupid.

Apple also removed the option to buy TV shows — which never really made much sense to me. There are some shows that people would like to own, but most are definitely watch-once programs. Previously, there was no rental option, you had to buy. Worse, even if you did want to own a lot, the old Apple TV didn’t have nearly enough storage to handle them all — some HD TV show seasons take up 30 GB of space or more. The model just didn’t make a lot of sense.

Granted, Apple’s current $0.99 TV show rental option is pretty weak. They only have shows from ABC and Fox — and only some shows from Fox. But obviously, just as happened with iTunes music and movies, Apple is hoping all the studios eventually get on board.  And if they do relatively soon, the Apple TV will be a very interesting device to consumers as both a movie box and as a potential cable replacement. Sure, most people aren’t going to feel comfortable totally killing cable just yet — but at $99, this will be a very interesting experiment for a lot of people.

All that said, let’s be clear: this Apple TV is not the killer device in the living room. This will be more popular than the current Apple TV, but it will not be iPod/iPhone/iPad-big. And Apple seems to know that, which is why they’re still talking cautiously about it.

The problem Apple faces is the same problem that everyone faces: content agreements. Hollywood is proving much harder to convince than the music labels were. In a few years, if DVD sales keep falling and cable revenues start decreasing, they’ll be more receptive to new options.

The killer Apple TV would have TV network subscription packages. It would offer live events. It would have every movie ever made available on-demand.

And on-demand is the big key to all of this. All of this content is going to move to the cloud. It has too for storage purposes and given how many devices we all have. Rentals just completely made the jump, but eventually purchases will too. At first, you’ll have the option to download certain movies you’ve bought to take on the go, but when you’re at your home, even movies you “own” will be streamed — they’ll simply be streamed for free. And then one day, all of this stuff will be in the cloud entirely as mobile devices will always be connected by high-speed wireless.

This is the future. It’s Apple’s future along with everyone else’s. This Apple TV is one small step in that direction, and at $99 it makes sense for now — at $229, it never did. This is a stepping stone to the cloud age. Right now it’s a mixture of the internal cloud (streaming from within your house) with the external cloud (streaming rentals from the cloud). Soon it will all be external.

If this half-step isn’t your thing, if you want more functionality, buy a Mac mini. There’s a reason Apple just added a HDMI output to it. But that device is too complicated and way too expensive for most consumers to use as a set-top box. The Apple TV is simple.

Oh, and one more thing: the true killer Apple TV device will have apps. I’m still absolutely convinced (as many people are) that it’s only a question of when they make the jump to the living room. The fact that this new Apple TV is running iOS seems to be all the proof one should need that this will come eventually.

When that happens, the Apple TV will become a hell of a lot more than a hobby.

The Obama administration back in January promised $8 billion in funding for cities and states to build high-speed, intercity rail projects.

This week, the Department of Transporation issued its specifications for the manufacture of new fast trains, namely double-decker coach, dining, baggage, and business class passenger rail cars that can travel between 79 MPH and up to 220 MPH.

Bi-level rail cars not typical in the US today, would accommodate more passengers, and hopefully alleviate congested roads and some resulting air pollution.

According to the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO) 95 percent of passenger travel in America is made by car, motorcycle and truck on our highways now.

Expanding highway capacity and overhauling busted roads with more durable and sustainable materials can prevent some traffic jams. But even highway professionals advocate building efficient, intercity, high speed trains and upgrading our freight rail systems.

Wireless companies like Groundlink and D-Link could win business rigging new high speed trains with internet service and related equipment.

Cities that recently won government funding for their high speed passenger rail projects include: Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinatti, Ohio, and Battle Creek, Michigan among others along the Detroit to Chicago route.

Feds promised the biggest piece of the budget in their national high speed rail transit program earlier this year to large-scale efforts in Florida and California that would connect Tampa and Orlando with 168 MPH trains, and Los Angeles and San Francisco with trains running up to 200 MPH.

Java gets a bad rap. It’s considered old-school. People say that young developers prefer Ruby-on-Rails and other Web-based hot stuff. True – but these are not bad times for Java at all.

James Governor of RedMonk wrote a post that provides several good reasons why Java is really doing quite well.

Elance shows the current demand for people with Google App Engine skills is greater than those knowledgeable about Amazon Web Services. Audrey Watters of ReadWriteCloud saw the news and posted on the topic of IT Jobs as the question for our weekly poll.

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The reason why Google App Engine is doing so well? It’s all about the enterprise. VMware’s Spring Platform is based upon SpringSource, which has become the dominant platform for launching Java-based apps. It now integrates with Google App Engine, a primary reason for the growing success of the platform.

Governor makes some points that are worth noting:

NoSQL is one of the hottest trends in tech right now. Many of the technologies built on the platform are written in Java. It was born on the Web but will eventually move to the enterprise.

MapReduce? It’s what Google and Yahoo! use to get fast responses over large data sets. It is built on Java. Hadoop is based on MapReduce. It has its own ecosystem developing around the technology.

And then there’s this from Governor:

Of course we’re also seeing innovation from the new hotness – thus Erlang underpins CouchDB and RIAK. But Java is certainly core to the innovation. Lets look at RabbitMQ for example – which though written in Erlang was acquired by SpringSource as a messaging engine to underpin a Java-based programming model.

Governor goes on to provide a number of other examples to make his point.

And we have to agree. Java is not dead. it still has plenty of room for innovation.

Discuss

Vidyo, a company that specializes in high-quality video conferencing technology for the enterprise, is betting big on bringing video conferencing to mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones. Similar to Skype, Vidyo offers a technology that allows people to connect with each other over the web via video conferencing. However, the company says that Vidyo system is focused more on the enterprise, providing a reliable system, allowing conferencing for a large number of parties at once, and offering high quality video.

And Vidyo has built a big business licensing its technology to large electronics companies, such as HP, Intel and Hitachi. Vidyo’s technology is also used by Google to power video for Google Chat.

And as the enterprise is increasingly becoming reliant on mobile devices for connectivity, Vidyo is making a strong push for its mobile technologies. The company has submitted an iPhone and iPad app to the App Store for approval, which will allow Vidyo customers to access the video conferencing product from their iOS devices (pictured above with CEO Ofer Shapiro). Here’s a video of Vidyo’s mobile technologies in action.

The idea is that you will be able to access and connect with Vidyo from any platform, whether it be an Android phone, iPad or computer. Shapiro says that increasingly clients are demanding cross-platform technologies for video conferencing; meaning that users on a variety of devices can all access the same video conference. And the company will be launching apps on other mobile platforms, including Android, soon.

Of course, it’s important to note that anyone using Vidyo’s iPad app will not be able to turn on video for themselves but the iPhone 4′s front-facing camera will be able to do this. However, Vidyo believes that next-generation versions of the iPad will have a front-facing camera included.

Of course, Vidyo isn’t the only player eying the potential for video conferencing to take off in the enterprise world. Cisco is rumored to be in talks with Skype; who just launched a nifty group video call feature for up to ten people. Skype, which filed for an IPO in early August, is looking for revenue channels and unsurprisingly sees potential in enterprise use of the service.

Another end game for Vidyo, who has raised a whopping $63 million in funding, could be an acquisition from one of the companies that licenses its video conferencing technology, such as Google, HP or others.

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In less than two days, Apple’s Ping music social network has surpassed the 1 million user milestone.

Apple introduced Ping as the centerpiece of iTunes 10 at its music event earlier this week. It is a music-centric social network where users can follow updates from both their friends and their favorite music artists. It includes custom song and album charts, a news feed and 17,000+ concert listings.

Ping has had a rocky road since its launch late on Wednesday. Apple’s social network has been hit with comment spam and international availability issues. The company’s in up-and-down talks with Facebook over integrations and API use. It’s also received lackluster reviews from the media.

However, that hasn’t stopped droves of people from trying out the iTunes-based social network. Apple says that 1/3 of users that have downloaded iTunes 10 have joined Ping.

Should we be surprised, though? More than 160 million people have iTunes, and curiosity is always at a high after an Apple event. However, while Ping may have 1 million registered users, that doesn’t mean they’ll still be using the social network three months from now. That is the numbers we’ll be interested in, because it is what will determine the fate of Ping as a service.

More About: apple, itunes, music, Ping, social networking

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It seems that one of the beta testers for Google TV couldn’t keep all that goodness to himself, and has posted several pictures and some video of the near-finished interface and hardware. It’s a brief and not particularly shocking video, but seeing it running on a home TV and hearing a regular guy expressing legitimate (if subdued) excitement make it a lot more real.

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